Catherine+Mau

While visiting a friend who had just given birth, 30-year-old Catherine Mau asked another friend, Catherine Beyer, to come with her to the office of 52-year-old Chicago midwifeAnna Heisler for an abortion. On February 13, 1929, two Catherines went together, and according to Beyer, Mau told the midwife that "she had three children and her husband was out of work and she could not support another one, and that her husband was sickly." Beyer waited while the midwife took Mau into another room and inserted a catheter. The two women parted ways and each went home to her husband and children. Two days later, Beyer met the midwife at Mau's home and helped her “wash her out” and put her to bed. Beyer then took care of Mau's children. About two weeks later, Mau's husband Frank called a doctor to report that his wife was in great pain. This doctor told Catherine Mau that she was near death. Mau reportedly said, “What will my children do?” A few weeks later, on March 11, Catherine died from infection. On July 20, 1929, Heisler was sentenced to Joliet Penitentiary for Catherine's death. She had already done time in Joliet for the May 30, 1919 abortion death of 43-year-old Lena Benich, but had been freed after winning an appeal.
 * SUMMARY: Catherine Mau, age 30, died on March 11, 1929 after an abortion perpetrated by Chicago midwife Anna Heisler.**

Keep in mind that things that things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future. For more about abortion in this era, see [|Abortion in the 1920s]. For more on pre-legalization abortion, see [|The Bad Old Days of Abortion]

Sources:
 * [|Homicide in Chicago Interactive]
 * "Midwife Found Guilty; Given Prison Sentence," Matoon (IL) Journal-Gazete, July 19, 1929

include component="tagCloud"